


A Whiter Shade of Pale

by jusrecht



Category: Code Geass
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-10
Updated: 2008-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers to Turn 09 R2. After the chess match, Suzaku questions his own worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Whiter Shade of Pale

  
It was the same sky, and yet it was different. The moon was paler, and the sky was of a darker shade than he used to lie and count stars under. They also seemed different, brighter but deader somehow, and when he lowered his gaze, it wasn’t a maze of buildings and glasses that reflected off moonlight and the muted weep of the oppressed. A traditional Chinese garden, trees and stones and fire flickering in grey, carved shells, shrouded in a spell of darkness.  
  
“It’s a beautiful place.”  
  
Suzaku slowly tore his gaze from the window, out of uneasiness and some deep-rooted courtesy. “Yes,” he murmured, watching the eyes watch him from across the room. It was a spacious room, beautifully furnished in oriental taste and just the right amount of luxury which would befit the Second Prince and Prime Minister of Britannia.  
  
He looked away first and pulled the dressing gown tighter around his frame, felt the fabric that whispered against his naked skin. It was cool and smooth – the finest silk in China – and he shivered. Luxury touched him like a lover shunned and bitter. It was a mistake, him, being there, but months and months of committing the same deed did not make him a better learner. He always came back to this, selling things, everything he owned, to get a scrap of _something_ in return.  
  
Some called it beggar. Some called it whore.  
  
“Are you concerned about Zero?”  
  
When was he not concerned about Zero? Suzaku wanted to sneer, but his face was frozen to a frown. He turned around and crossed half the distance to stand at the foot of the bed, close enough without having to remember the touch, the heat. The smile.  
  
“He will show up at the ceremony tomorrow,” he said, only loud enough to keep his voice from trembling.  
  
“Will he?” the prince sounded vaguely amused. “Then perhaps he is a man far more foolish than I thought.”  
  
“Or a desperate one.”  
  
“Or a desperate one,” Schneizel agreed. “One cannot help but wonder at his true motives.”  
  
Suzaku felt his insides curling. It wouldn’t be surprising – schemers, those with a mind greater and greater still – but if the prince knew about Zero, then what was the purpose of the match?  
  
“If Your Highness had lost…” he stopped, words caught in his throat. The fear was fresh still, threading his muscles like small streams of poison. He couldn’t imagine what ‘give Lord Kururugi to me’ meant. But the prince had not hesitated – trampling his dreams, everything he had fought for so far.  
  
“If I had lost, it would have been a victory worth losing,” Schneizel said, in the sure, graceful way of royalties. “Prices we pay to know our enemy better.”  
  
Suzaku swallowed the bile rising in the back of his throat. “Because I’m a Knight of Round?”  
  
“Because I believe you,” the answer came point-blank, firm, without any shade of hesitation. “I have no delusion about your loyalty or where it lies, Suzaku-kun, but you are not capable of betrayal.” He paused, and then added, lips curving slightly, “You are too honourable.”  
  
He wanted to be angry. He wanted to spite, to hate, to prove Schneizel that _he_ , for once, was wrong, but he was not capable of betrayal, and somehow it was. Betrayal. To Japan perhaps – or to those old, memorised stories that represented her because the Japan he remembered didn’t exist anymore.  
  
“I wish I am,” he heard his voice, full of bitter longing of something.  
  
“You wish you aren’t,” the prince said placidly, their gaze locked over the bed. Suzaku inhaled a shaky breath, and perhaps that slight admission – _I want to give up_ – made him a traitor, but he couldn’t figure where the head and tail of it anymore.  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Schneizel said and rose to approach him. “Wishes are wishes, and so they should remain.”  
  
  
 ** _End  
  
_**


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